U.S. aerospace companies' sales edged up 4.2% in the final quarter of 1995, to $31.1 billion, but the industry's collective profits were off nearly two-thirds from the previous quarter's pace thanks mostly to a $1.8 billion McDonnell Douglas write-off during the period. Figures tabulated by the Aerospace Industries Association show that the industry's operating margin came to a relatively healthy 7%, compared with 5.6% a year earlier, and total industry orders jumped nearly 28% during the period.
A partisan showdown over the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) looms when Congress returns from its August recess next month, with Republicans set to do battle against Democrats who support the treaty. Many Republicans in Congress believe stepping up efforts to stop the spread of nuclear weapons is a good idea, but do not think the Democrat's call for ratification of CTBT is the best means for doing so. Meanwhile, the Democrats are touting the test ban as key to preventing nuclear technology proliferation.
The U.S. Air Force could augment the Airborne Laser's ballistic missile defense capability with a missile interceptor, but wants to let the ABL and interceptor programs progress before any commitment is made, an Air Force official said yesterday.
The two Russian members of the upcoming Russian-French mission to the Mir space station have been replaced at the last moment after the Russian commander failed a medical test. Colonel Gennadiy Manakov was barred from the mission after physicians detected a cardiac insufficiency during a routine electrocardiogram. Manakov, Flight Engineer Pavel Vinogradov and Cosmonaut Researcher Claudie Andre-Deshays of France was scheduled to be launched to Mir aboard Soyuz TM-23 on Saturday.
EDO Corp. has won a $500 million contract from the Naval Surface Weapons Center, Coastal Systems Station, to lead, direct and integrate a $2 million multinational study of the Next-generation Influence Minesweep Systems (NIMS). The NIMS program is a cooperative effort, being shared equally by the U.S., Canada, Norway and France. EDO has been involved in Navy minesweeping technology since the 1970s with the MK-105 Airborne Minesweeping System, which the Navy has used in major operations including Operations Desert Shield and Storm.
The U.S. government plans to provide Central European countries airspace management centers that will provide interoperability between countries in the region and between the military and civilian airspace managers in each country.
The U.S. Marine Corps scored two hits against theater missile defense targets in a demonstration designed to validate the performance of the upgraded Hawk air-defense system for the TMD mission. In the first two tests, Aug. 14 and 15, the Hawk successfully engaged Lance targets during testing at the Army's White Sands Missile Range, N.M., the Marine Corps said yesterday. The Marine Air Control Group 38 fired two Hawk missiles at each of the Lance targets, with the missile's flying a 51- kilometer trajectory in both cases.
Imagery gathered by NASA's Galileo space probe offers evidence the Jovian moon Europa may have liquid water beneath its icy surface, raising the possibility environmental "niches" may exist there that could support life. The U.S. space agency released high resolution images of Europa Tuesday that show ice patterns similar to those found at the earth's poles, where ice breaks apart as it floats atop the water into pieces that would fit together like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle.
Raytheon E-Systems has won a $170 million contract to develop and maintain a high performance computing system project for the Army Research Laboratory at Aberdeen Proving Ground, Md. The total contract spans up to eight years. E-Systems won the fourth contract award in the DOD modernization series to link high-speed computers to serve government researchers across the country.
Lockheed Martin and its principal subcontractor Hughes Aircraft are developing a shipboard infrared search and track (IRST) system to provide enhanced ship defense against incoming anti-ship cruise missiles (ASCM). Under a $14.9 million, two-year contract, Lockheed Martin intends to develop and test an engineering demonstration model of the IRST. The system is slated to be tested at Navy land-based test facilities and aboard ship. The contract has a potential value of $44.9 million.
A Delta Airlines Boeing 727 had to make an emergency landing at New York's La Guardia Airport Wednesday night after one of its Pratt&Whitney JT8D turbofans suffered a severe surge and turbine failure during climbout, sending pieces of the turbine section into a residential area near the airport, P&W and airline officials said yesterday.
NASA should maintain its goal of a robotic sample return mission to Mars but will need more capable robotic rovers to carry it out, a panel of the National Research Council concluded even before scientists funded by the U.S. space agency announced they may have found evidence of microscopic life in a Martian meteorite.
The U.S. Internal Revenue Service thinks major engine overhauls are capital expenditures rather than expenses, and tax attorneys agree that even though it only represents IRS's opinion in a single case, the theory could easily be applied broadly throughout the industry with multi-million dollar effects. The little-noticed May 3 Technical Advice Memorandum, obtained by DAILY affiliate O&M News, isn't a formal ruling, so it doesn't carry the force of law. In fact, a stamp on the document says it "may not be used or cited as precedent."
Europe's Joint Aviation Authorities yesterday certified the first engine produced by the BMW Rolls-Royce joint venture - the 14,750 lbst. BR710, on schedule five years after launch of the core BR700 development program, and a little less than four years after the launch of the -710 version. "This is the most important milestone in BMW Rolls Royce's six-year history," says Chairman Albert Schneider, "and a major achievement for a new engine program."
Debt-watcher Moody's Investors Service just hiked ratings on one of the aircraft engine industry's best customers - International Lease Finance Corp - to A1 from A2. Moody's likes ILFC's management, its relatively young aircraft portfolio and its strengthening profitability, as well as the improving outlook for the aircraft and airline industry's fundamentals.
Air Canada is in an expansionist mode, industry sources confirm to AP, holding on to airplanes it originally planned to retire, and potentially eying boosted buys of still more aircraft. Airline and supplier sources confirm the thrust of wire service accounts in Montreal earlier this week reporting that the carrier has decided against retiring six Boeing 747-200s when it takes delivery of six new long-range Airbus A340s this winter.
Although the Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile will net the winning contractor about $3 billion in domestic business, international releasability problems and stiff international competition may limit sales beyond the U.S. "I can't sit here and say that in fact that it will be released," Col. T.J. Klungseth, head of the Air Force's international affairs weapons division, told The DAILY Tuesday. "It's hard to judge how all the agencies will vote" when the time comes to discuss releasability.
Pratt&Whitney's PW2040 turbofan will power four new Boeing 757-200s the U.S. Air Force is leasing as replacements for elderly VC-137 VIP transports, P&W reports. Rated at 40,000 lbst., the PW2040 holds about a quarter of the 757s in service today, while Rolls-Royce RB211-535 series engines power the rest. Designated C-32A, the AF VIP 757 will fly with the 89th Military Airlift Wing at Andrews AFB, Md., outside Washington, D.C. (DAILY, Aug. 12).
Raytheon Electronics Systems (RES) has won an Air Force contract with a potential value of $620 million for the DOD/FAA Digital Airport Surveillance Radar (DASR) program. The award is an indefinite quantity/indefinite delivery contract for up to 213 radars and will extend though 2007.
Reiterating his promise to protect defense spending if he wins the presidency in November, GOP contender Bob Dole again blasted the Clinton defense policy yesterday and vowed to bolster the Pentagon's budget. "If I make a mistake on defense spending, I'm going to err on the side of spending a little too much than a little too little," Dole yesterday said at a speech at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in San Diego, site of the GOP national convention. Dole officially will accept the GOP nomination for president at the convention tonight.
Arrow Air has been reinstated by the Defense Dept. as an authorized air cargo carrier. Arrow said it was suspended from the DOD Air Transport Program in March 1995 after it "voluntarily halted its operations to cooperate with the FAA in a complete inspection and revaldiation of its operating certificate."
Pratt&Whitney has just finished testing a new, highly efficient, more durable fan module for the F100-PW-229 fighter engine, and hopes to get the go-ahead for a $40 million flight qualification program from the U.S. Air Force by the end of the year, a program official tells AP.
Russian technicians put their newly modified RD-36 supersonic engine for the Tupolev Tu-144 to work for the first time Monday during a test run at the once-secret Zhukovsky air base outside Moscow, with officials from U.S. partners Boeing and General Electric, as well as NASA, looking on. "We plan to make six flight tests operating an upgraded Tu-144LL, which could become a prototype of the supersonic jet of the next century," Tupolev chief designer Alexander Pukhov told reporters this week. Those flights are slated for October.
Lockheed Martin will apply lessons learned from its F-16 production line to the F-22 program to control cost trends that are raising concerns in the U.S. Air Force, the company's chief executive said yesterday. "There are things we can do to reduce cost in [F-22] production," Norman Augustine, vice chairman and CEO of Lockheed Martin, told Aviation Week Group editors yesterday. Augustine said the study launched by the Air Force to examine F-22 costs "is being done in partnership" with industry.
Selected Acquisition Report (SAR) programs for the three-month period ending June 30, 1996, are detailed in the following table, released by the Defense Dept. (DAILY, Aug. 14). Dollar figures are in millions. Current Estimate Change this Qtr Cost Cost Weapon Base Base Then Base Then System Year Year$ Year$ Qty Year$ Year$ Qty ARMY
